1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a supporting structure of a door impact beam for a vehicle, and more particularly, to a supporting structure of a door impact beam for a vehicle with improved side impact performance.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, passengers are badly hurt by a side impact of a car at the time of a car accident. Therefore, each door of a car is mounted with impact beams so as to perform a buffer action at the time of impact, thereby improving a safety of passengers. The impact beam is a reinforcing structure that prevents doors from being pushed to reduce a damage inside a car.
Further, the impact beam serves to prevent an appearance of doors from being deformed due to a repeated operation of the opening and closing of the doors for a long period of time, in addition to protect passengers.
The impact beam has a pipe shape and is mounted on a door in a longitudinal direction of a car to prepare against the side impact of a car. The impact beam is supported by a bracket that is mounted on an inner panel of a door.
The bracket according to the related art for supporting the impact beam is generally further mounted with a reinforcing bracket in addition to a base bracket so as to reinforce a supporting force. The bracket supporting the impact beam may be implemented to have various shapes. One example of the bracket will be described with reference to FIGS. 4 to 6. FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a supporting structure of a door impact beam for a vehicle, FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line C-C of FIG. 4, and FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line D-D of FIG. 5.
A base bracket 121 fixes an impact beam 110 to a door while supporting the impact beam 110. The base bracket 121 is provided in a cantilever form by integrally bending a coupling part 122, an arm 123, and an inclined part 124. A surface of the arm 123 is provided with a fixed groove 125 so that the impact beam 110 is fitted in the arm 123.
The coupling part 122 is fixed to a side outer of an inner panel 130 of a door by a spot welding. The inclined part 124 extends while having a predetermined slope by being bent from the coupling part 122 and the arm 123 supports the impact beam 110 by being bent from the inclined part 124. The arm 123 has a semi-circular shape so that the fixed groove 125 for the fitting of the impact beam 110 meets a shape of the impact beam 110. Therefore, the impact beam 110 is fitted in the fixed groove 125 so as to be supported by the base bracket 121 and connected with a door of the vehicle.
The reinforcing bracket 140 is further mounted on the inner panel of the door so as to support the cantilever form of the base bracket 121. The reinforcing bracket 140 is integrally provided with a vertical coupling part 141 and a reinforcing arm 142. The vertical coupling part 141 is fixed to an inner side of the side outer of the inner panel 130 of the door by the spot welding. The vertical coupling part 141 connects the reinforcing bracket 140 with the door and supports the reinforcing arm 142 of the reinforcing bracket 140. The reinforcing arm 142 is bent from the vertical coupling part 141 so as to be adjacent to the surface of the arm 123 of the base bracket 121. The surface of the reinforcing arm 142 is also provided with a semi-circular reinforcing groove 143 meeting the shape of the impact beam 110 similar to the arm 123 of the base bracket 121. Therefore, the reinforcing bracket 140 further supports the base bracket 121 in a vertical direction to improve the impact performance of the base bracket 121 having a cantilever shape.
However, as illustrated in FIG. 6, the reinforcing bracket 140 of the bracket supporting the impact beam 110 according to the related art is easily collapsed at the time of the impact due to the absence of the portion connected with the door except for the vertical coupling part 141. Therefore, the impact energy transferred to a door of a vehicle at the time of the side impact of the vehicle is not sufficiently absorbed and therefore, large impact energy is transferred to an interior of the vehicle. Therefore, a need exists for a method for improving the side impact performance.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.